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Character: Caster (Medea)
Series/Fandom: Fate/Stay Night Franchise
Deviance: 1

Age: Est. 3,000 years, appears to be in her late twenties.
Gender: Female
Species: Heroic Spirit: The noble, legendary souls of heroes 'reincarnated' as Servants to fight alongside mages, their Masters, for the chance to win the Holy Grail.

Canon Used:
Quite a bit! Euripides's "Medea", various other Jason and the Argonauts mythology/legends, the Fate/Stay Night visual novel, and Fate franchise side materials.

Appearance:
For the most part, Caster is rather secretive about her appearance. She always wears a heavy, enchanted cloak that is able to make her Batman. I mean, it lets her fly. The cloak is in two parts: the topmost portion is purple, shawl-like garment, and underneath is a larger and longer olive green cloak which also has a hood. Holding these two pieces is a golden clasp, and on the forehead of the hood is another golden ornament, though this one is leaf-like. There is also another gold trimmed cloth underneath both of these pieces with a weight at its end.

Underneath the hood and cloak, Caster wears a rather unusual dress. It is long, down to her ankles, and lavender in color. The sleeves (complete with shoulder pads) are a darker purple, and the top of the lavender portion is trimmed in the same kind of gold ornaments present in the rest of her outfit. However, her sleeves are unusual. One reaches down to her wrist, while the other is cut to the upper half of her upper arm. On both hands Caster wears black gloves and is protected be metal wrist guards. That is about all she wears, ever.

As for her actual appearance, if you're lucky enough to see it, Caster is quite pretty. She has mid-back length blue hair, and has a small braid on one side. Her eyes are nearly the same color as her hair. She also has pointed ears! But she's not an elf, to get that out of the way. She is more petite in her build than some of the other Servants (I'm looking at you, Rider).

With Hood
Without Hood

Psychology:
Though Fate/Hollow Ataraxia may lead you to think otherwise, Caster, or more accurately, Medea, is the original feminist. In Euripides's "Medea," the Medea we see is the complete opposite of every female standard for a proper Greek woman. She does not want to stay at home and do nothing, she wants to stand by Jason's side actively. She does not want to be forgotten, but wants her story told like a hero. She has honor and pride in a masculine sense rather than the feminine. She has the extremely valued quality in heroes of metis, cleverness. She is brave, forward, and a very strong woman. But it's those qualities that might have led to her downfall. As a foreign princess, she had no rights, and so she wouldn't have seen any loss in killing children that were, by law, not her own, but Jason's.

Medea is a woman who wants to be a hero. She says it herself throughout the play. She wants to be Jason's partner in crime, and she does so! Yet she is not the hero of the story, and instead the witch. She is very embittered towards this idea, and it is why she wants to fight for the Grail at all. She feels wronged by the cards fate dealt her and the label that was forever stuck to her name, somewhat unfairly. She still seeks revenge, but it is not a violent one, but instead a rebellion against her fate.

Which is to say that Caster is not a passive woman at all. She is clever, conniving, and manipulative and when she wants something? She'll get it. But she'll get it by her own hands and isn't content to have things just given to her. That's part of her pretty massive pride, but you'd expect that from any princess-turned-witch, really. Or any of my characters. None of them are that humble. But whatever, back to Caster.

Now, all of these qualities make Caster an anti-hero more than a sympathetic woman. Luckily, she has both of these sides. I almost like to think that Caster keeps herself cloaked constantly because it distracts people from her femininity. It's not that she hates it (quite the contrary--she isn't against using it to her advantage), but she wants to be treated for her actions more than her looks or gender. Though she seems quite cold and heartless, she is actually quite kind and very much feeling. After all, one version of her legend says that after killing her brother, Medea goes to see her Aunt Circe to be absolved of her sins and have a shoulder to cry on.

Caster is a mature woman who is, most of all, searching for a love like the one she felt for Jason, but without the Gods' help. She wants to love again, but won't admit it to even herself because she's partially ashamed of it. But because of Jason's betrayal, she highly values honesty and frankness in other people, even if she's very underhanded herself. Once she does find someone she cares for, there isn't a better ally to have. Caster gladly sacrificed herself to save Souichirou, and would do the same for anyone else that she loved, after all. She tries very hard to please those that she cares about, and doesn't object to traditionally female activities such as cooking and cleaning---as long as she is allowed to continue her other hobbies.

Other Skills/Abilities:
Caster, first and foremost, is a magus. She is capable of everything from simple charms to complex and powerful spells. Because of how specific Fate/Stay Night is about stats and powers, though, then I get to do bulleted lists for this section!

• Territory Creation: Caster is able to create a territory that increases her magical powers
  
• Tool Creation: Caster can create tools with magical energy, even an immortality serum.
  
• Rule Breaker: Caster's magic dagger is able to destroy any magic. And that does mean any. The explanation the game gives is: "A dagger than can destroy any magic. An ultimate and magic Noble Phantasm that returns any object strengthened with magic, bound by contract, or any life form created out of magic to a state prior to its creation."
  
• High Speed Divine Language: Caster is able to perform extremely complex magical spells that would usually take circles and many lines of speaking to perform with a single word.
  
• Golden Fleece: Caster possesses Golden Fleece! It, in theory, could allow her to summon a dragon, but she's not able to do so. But she can still use it to summon hella powerful beings.
  
• Regeneration: Caster, like all Servants, is able to regenerate from life-threatening wounds in a matter of minutes. However, actually fatal wounds? They'll kill her.

Other Weaknesses:
Caster is extremely hard for anyone other than a Servant to kill. She has extremely powerful magic and defense against regular humans. However, a magically strengthened punch or other physical attacks can harm her. Most non-magical weapons cannot touch her, however. But if you have magic on your side, then she's killed like any other human though her regenerative abilities can make that difficult, too.

History:
Once upon a time, there was a ye olde fratboy named Jason. He had a fight with King Pelias, who had taken over his country. Being butthurt and wanting his country back, he made King Pelias promise to give back the throne as long Jason was able to bring back the legendary Golden Fleece of Colchis. However, when he got to Colchis, King Aeëtes basically said "no" and made Jason fight to his death. Since Jason had the Gods on his side, Hera convinced Eros (or Aphrodite, depending on who's telling the legend) to make the princess of Colchis, Medea, fall in love with Jason. Bewitched by love, Medea used her cleverness and magical skill to help Jason obtain the Fleece, and in return, Jason kept his promise to marry Medea and take her back to Greece.

But Medea had betrayed her family and her country for a man she had never seen. King Aeëtes was furious, and vowed to capture Jason before he left with his daughter and the fleece, but once again, Medea helped Jason. Still bewitched by love, she cut her brother Absyrtus into pieces and scattered his pieces behind the fleeing boat. So that Absyrtus could be properly buried, King Aeëtes had to pause to collect those pieces, and Jason and Medea were able to escape to Iolcus.

King Pelias refused to give up Iolcus, so Medea once again conspired against those who stood against her new husband. She knew that she would make King Pelias's daughters kill their father, and told them she knew the secret to immortality---she had turned an old ram young again by cutting up an old ram and boiling it. She demonstrated this to the girls, and when a young ram did jump out of the pot, the daughters happily killed their father. Of course, it didn't work. The other Argonauts were happy that their leader had claimed his throne once again, but were displeased that it was through deceit. They called Medea a witch, and then chased the couple out of the country.

So Medea and Jason arrived in Corinth. But Jason, being a ye olde fratboy, left Medea for the princess of Corinth, Glauce. Medea was enraged by Jason's betrayal and vowed to have revenge. When they were to be wed, Medea sent Glauce a dress covered in poison. When Glauce put the dress on, she was poisoned, and her father was also killed by trying to save Glauce. To hurt Jason even more, Medea killed the two children that she and Jason had bore, leaving Jason alive to feel the pain of the deaths Medea had caused. Jason surely would have also killed Medea in return if not for her grandfather's intervention. A golden chariot from Helios saved Medea, but the princess had fallen far. She was safe from Jason's wrath, but she became a true witch and roamed the foreign Greek land until her death. But her death was not really the end, for Medea, the corrupted hero, became a Heroic Spirit.

A Heroic Spirit is one of the guardians of the world. What this actually means is a mystery, since Nasu doesn't really explain it, but they are there for a particular purpose. These spirits are those of heroes (or, like in her case, anti-heroes) who have a debt to pay to the world. The examples Nasu gives are absolutely terrible, but I assume Medea's debt to the world are the people that she murdered and her treachery. But she had the chance in this existence to become a Servant. A Servant is a Heroic Spirit summoned by a magus for the sole purpose of competing in the Holy Grail War. This is exactly what it sounds like---a War to determine what pair of Master and Servant can possess the Holy Grail, which is an immensely powerful wish granting device. Medea's only wish was to exact revenge again. Her revenge was not against Jason, but against the fate that the dead Gods had given her of being a witch.

Medea was summoned in the fifth Holy Grail War in Fuyuki City as a Caster-class Servant. She was the first Servant to be summoned, but her Master was not to her liking. He used his first command spell to make Caster collect souls of the living to stockpile magical energy--something that she hated to do. She was quickly resentful of her Master, and so she plotted to kill him, just as she had as a mortal woman. Caster betrayed him by stabbing him in the back with her Rule Breaker after he had used up his command seals, thinking that she was loyal to him. But one of those seals had lowered her magical power, so she was threatened to disappear within a few hours.

Caster wandered through the rain and lamented her fate of dying before even getting the chance to compete as a Servant, but a man found her and took her to the local temple. It was extremely lucky for Caster, since the temple was on a vein of energy, so she was able to survive. This man, Souichirou Kuzuki, was a quiet and honest man. She told him her story, and he agreed to be her new Master despite not being a magus. Caster lived while posing as Souichirou's fiancee, but as the War drew closer, she prepared for the battle ahead.

She did something unheard of and summoned a Servant herself, but he was not a true Servant. She summoned the Assassin-class Servant whose true name was Sasaki Kojirou. But since Caster was a Servant, the Sasaki Kojirou she summoned was a fictional character rather than the real thing. It worked well enough, though, and Caster charged Assassin with guarding the entrance to the temple from Servants that may come seeking her, since the Caster class is the weakest without considerable planning.

Archer and Rin confront Caster and Souichirou, but Archer suddenly betrays Rin to work alongside Caster. Shirou and Rin have to regroup for a while, but when they confront Archer, Caster, and Souichirou again, they now have Lancer's help. So it's Lancer vs. Archer, Caster vs. Rin, and Shirou vs. Souichirou. FIGHT!!

Rin almost beats Caster (by cheating) by beating the crap out of her, but Caster finally decides to use the command spells for Saber and make Saber kill Shirou and Rin. But Archer betrays (again) and slashes at Souichirou. Caster protects her Master faithfully, declaring as she disappears that she loved him and that he was fufilling the only wish she had ever truly wanted. Awww.

So shortly (sort of, time is relative) after dying, Caster is summoned as a Servant once again, but this time to the Astral Plane. Problem is, there's no Master for her, so she has ten days to find one according to Meredith and the Twins.

Canon Point: Post death in the Unlimited Blade Works-route. Because of the mechanics of the Fate universe, this is not a revival, but instead the Plane will be effectively summoning Caster. She has ten days to find a Master on the Plane before it's back to oblivion.

Reality Description:
Caster has no reality. Quite literally. Caster is a ghost-like being that existed in a dimension outside of time before she came to the Plane---it's pure nothingness! So whoever she gets mergers with will become her reality.